'Flattening the Old World'

By

Richard Morgan and Aaron Rutkoff

Feb. 10, 2013 7:56 p.m. ET

In Silicon Valley, the social side of power sprawls between corporate campuses. But in New York, coming into power means gaining after-hours footholds in the heart of the city. Just as titans of finance, fashion and media have out-of-office clubhouses here, so has New York's tech scene created its own distinctive social spots.

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Leaders in technology this week on the NYIndex.

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They might not be as easy to spot as a wood-paneled purveyor of steak near Wall Street, but tech professionals can see the signs of social cachet even if the crowd is wearing hooded sweatshirts inside a dive bar.

"One way you can tell the tech bars in New York is the start-up stickers in the bathrooms," said Allison Mooney, the head of trends and insights at Google's New York office. "They're in the ladies room, too."

Tech advertises its social presence differently than New York's old-line industries—and the misunderstanding goes both ways. An image that evokes stately power—say, a Park Avenue co-op complete with a baroque library—isn't a shared aspiration in tech.

"Why not get a Kindle, and then turn that room into something awesome?" asked Ricky Van Veen, a millionaire founder of CollegeHumor.com.

"Old money is having a driver. New money is having Über," he added, referring to the app-powered livery service. "It feels lighter, less wasteful. And you still get someone to take you wherever you want to go whenever you want."

Mo Koyfman, a former investment banker who is now general partner in venture-capital firm Spark Capital's SoHo office, explained tech's social footprint in the city this way: "Computer science prioritizes efficiency and convenience, and that translates to how tech people live their lives."

For all the talk of innovation, the tech crowd has also created its own routine social scene: breakfasts at Balthazar, lunches at Lure Fishbar and drinks at the lobby of the Ace Hotel. It's a pattern familiar to other marquee sectors.

There is no tech answer to Elaine Kaufman, the late matriarch of the legendary Upper East Side salon at Elaine's, populated by media and entertainment heavyweights. But there is Gabe Stulman, the restaurateur backed financially by some of the city's tech titans.

"New York City is built—has always been built—on fiefdoms. The Knickerbocker Club, the Health & Racquet scene, all that," said born-and-bred New Yorker Mike Mayer, the founder of start-up IndustryGraph and a technology consultant to the mayor's office.

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Abid Anwar, Vlad Lackovic and John Botte in the office of Digital Natives, an education start-up also based in Long Island City.
Andrew Hinderaker for The Wall Street Journal

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"What tech is doing here is flattening the old world, removing hierarchy. The currency of relationships and networks is changing. Not only would a skyscraper penthouse office be uncool" for a New York tech titan, Mr. Mayer argued, "it would be untenable."

Jonathan Basker, vice president of people at Betaworks, a start-up development company, agreed: Lords of finance, he speculated, "might be happy or proud about getting rich and what that lets them do." But he believes some feel chagrined about their social status—unlike the tech world's "true believers."

"At parties," said Mr. Van Veen, "finance people either lie, obscure their jobs or immediately change the topic of conversation."

Tech, as a new arrival, benefits from New York's diversity as compared to the monoculture of Silicon Valley. "The intersection is what's great about it," said Google's Ms. Mooney of rubbing shoulders with people outside the tech world.

Adam Robinson is an example of the crossover: He left a job in credit default swaps to create the start-up Robly, a marketing platform, and he prefers the looser lifestyle.

"In tech, the freedom is amazing. I could take a two-month vacation and just work remotely," he said. "You know who gets to take long vacations in finance? The people who retire, that's who."

Andrew Rasiej, chairman of NY Tech Meetup, was debating the merits of New York versus Silicon Valley's nearest metropolis, San Francisco, at a recent conference when a young programmer chipped in: "New York will always win out," Mr. Rasiej recalled of the exchange, "because it has more girls."

A table full of female models was recently enjoying a girls' night out at Abe & Arthur's, a steakhouse in the Meatpacking District, when a man sent one of the women a note on a cocktail napkin. It read: "iamrich@google.com."

The women posted the napkin to FacebookFB-1.26% and crowdsourced ways they might reject the overture. In a way, it brought together avatars of the new tech scene with icons of established fashion power. But it also marked, in Internet lingo, an epic fail.

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